Civil aviation shows mixed safety results in 2012: report

Washington – U.S. civil aviation, which refers to non-military private and commercial flights, showed mixed safety improvements in 2012, according to preliminary statistics released Aug. 6 by the National Transportation Safety Board.

Among the preliminary findings:

For scheduled and non-scheduled commercial flights, 27 incidents occurred in 2012, a decrease from 31 in 2011, and zero fatalities occurred in 2012 (the same as in 2011).

Among commuter operations, which require more rigorous Federal Aviation Administration standards than commercial air flights, zero fatalities and four incidents occurred in 2012, the same as in 2011.

Among on-demand operations, such as air tours and medical flights, 37 incidents and nine fatalities occurred in 2012, a decrease from 50 incidents and 16 fatalities in 2011.

For general aviation, which includes most non-scheduled civilian flights, the number of fatal incidents increased to 271 in 2012 from 266 in 2011, but the overall incident rate per 100,000 flight hours decreased to 6.78 in 2012 from 6.84 in 2011.